I was fortunate enough, after many years of searching, to pick up the SR version of the TX200 and really lucked out to get an unmodified Mark 1 version. This is a semi-recoilless version of the TX.

I have been setting it up over the last couple of days and early signs are very encouraging.

The first thing I did was to set the tension on the slide. I mounted a Leupold MK4, fixed 35X on the gun, using a zero recoil RWS mount that was modified by Hector Medina, to take all of the wobble out of it. I then disassembled the gun just enough to adjust the slide. The slide was releasing the action at less than 10 degrees of incline and I wanted between 30 and 45 degrees. With very small increments, I tightened the tensioning nuts until the action was sliding back when I elevated the gun between 30 and 45 degrees. I then reassembled the gun and torqued the stock screws so I did not over tighten them.

I then shot the gun a few times into my trap, just to be sure it was working well. Looking good at that point. I ran a few over the chrony and it is shooting at about 11.8 fpe, which is a little hotter than what I want. I will take out one of the spacer washers and should end up around 780 fps or just under 11.4 fpe. At this point I packed the gun away for the night.

The next day was windy, but I only wanted to get the scope set so I was hitting paper at ten yards. It did not take a long time to do that as you can see from the pic below. I will add to this thread as I go through the process to set up all the aim points and certainly fill you in on how the gun and I perform in a match.

For the first four shots I was just aiming at the centre of the target, then switched to the bottom right.....

I shot the SR in the wind and some rain at the November 5th match at Grenville and the gun performed well. I did not have the chart completed and did a little figuring out as I went, often seeing where the first shot hit and compensating for it on the second. Near the end of the 60 shots, I was getting better scores on each lane. I started off with ones and twos out of four and finished up with threes and fours, for a score of 39/60, which I was quite satisfied with. Anyone who has shot at Grenville knows how many evil little hit zones we have on the course.

With the SR, it was nice to see the pellet on its path to the target, especially when its destination was the hit zone. But even watching the misses gives you valuable input.

With the matches over, I am going to switch to pellet selection mode, as I have a fair number of pellets that are appropriate for a TX. I used the 8.4 since they were the pellets used by the last owner and I did not have enough time to go through the process of selecting a pellet and then setting the gun up for the pellet of choice. The wind is supposed to be 8 kph tomorrow, so I will be out there to take advantage of one of the rare low wind days with the lake in my backyard.

I did get to do a little shooting on the 7th and although there was some wind, compared to a normal day here, it was quite mild. I did all the shooting at 50 yards to see what each pellet was doing at that distance.

I tried the 8.44 JSBs first since that is what I had been using. I found out why I was missing some of the longer shots and maybe even some of the close ones on very small hit zones. Not a great group. There was a breeze from right to left, but the up and down part was disappointing.

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I then switched to the RS and got what I though was a promising group with the horizontal stringing due to the wind, so I shot another group to confirm the pellet. Not near as encouraging.

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I then switched to the Express that I had so much success with in my Steyr, my FWB 300 and my 410 carbine. I completely jerked on my first shot, the one at the bottom and then ended up with a decent string of shots considering the wind had started to blow a little stronger by then.

JSB Exp 7.87.jpg (268.99 KiB) Viewed 3171 times

I still have to try the AA 8.44s I have somewhere and do more shooting with the Express to see if those results continue.

All shooting was done from a seated FT position. I was holding dead centre on the targets and did not adjust at all for the lighter pellets, so that is why the groups with the lighter pellets had a higher centre for the groups. Note the centre of the Express 7.87 group was higher than the 7.3s; interesting. At the dead wind spots, there was a pretty good group with at least four or five pellets through it using the Express 7.87s.

I have had one more outing with the SR since the last post. I was fortunate enough to attend a fun shooting day at Dave's place near Smith Falls. It was about -1 or -2 for most of the day while we shot. Felt nicer than that since we were in a beautiful cedar woods behind Dave's house.

I had tested the gun at about 2 degrees and the velocity was actually up about 1%, so I was looking forward to some extended shooting time in cold weather. We set up a 48 shot course, sighted in a bit and then paired up to shoot. I only needed about four or five shots to sight in, so that was very encouraging. During the actual shooting, I hit a branch, cut some grass and jerked one shot to miss three on the course. The gun was perfectly capable of the cleaning the course, but I'm happy with the performance. We were more interested in good conversation and fun than anything else.

With winter arriving I will have to settle for offhand and kneeling practise and the occasion back yard practise when the weather allows it and maybe even sometimes when it doesn't. Shooting in all conditions can only make you better and besides, I like shooting.

Have a left handed SR stock, pretty much the same as the one I have, coming soon, that could see some modifications to turn it into a right hand match style stock. The price of a FT match stock for an SR is probably more than I paid for the gun and the stock that came with it. Winter project.

Had another opportunity to shoot at Dave's place again on January 21st, but the course did look a little different. Lots of fun in the snow.

I added a small wooden riser as you can see in the pic of me shooting lane two and Dave scoring. Notice the bare fingers and hand on those Canadians, eh!

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After a few sight in shots, the gun, again, performed flawlessly for the 48 shot course. I clipped the edge of a reducer for one miss and a questionable target was the other. I ended with 46/48 and I am loving this gun. The JSB 7.87 still seems to be the pellet of choice for this gun

I ordered an Anschutz accessory rail today for my winter stock modification project and look forward to getting started on that. I am going to look into the hardware to create the adjustable cheek piece and then do the one thing that I am a little apprehensive about. Cutting the cheek piece out of the stock is a concern for sure, but it is something that has to be done.

Had another fun day at Dave's and this time it was definitely winter. We shot in temperatures from -12 to -7 C (10 to 19 F) and the gun did not even notice.

I missed a couple of long ones later in the course when the muscles were reflexively tensed due to the cold. I learned from those misses as well. I saw the crosshairs shift to three o'clock when the trigger released and watched the pellet on its way to hit right at three o'clock. When the pellet hits exactly where the crosshairs were pointed, you can't really complain.

I have created a little sawdust in my stock modification project, but not enough to be picture worthy yet. Will post some of those pics once I get a little more done.